Abstract

Background

The onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic initiated drastic changes to the everyday norms of bariatric surgical practice. The impact was disruptive and included the postponement of elective surgical intervention, necessitated changes to the usual processes of both pre and post-surgical care and the responsive adaptation of bariatric surgeons to the demands of the crisis. Whilst other health and medical care specialties have been acknowledged in the subsequent published evidence base surrounding psychological wellbeing and resilience, minimal evidence exists to date on the first hand accounts of the impact of the pandemic for bariatric surgeons. Being able to explore this via the reported experiences of this part of the healthcare workforce provides an invaluable insight into the perspectives of dedicated specialty surgical teams but more importantly a means of reflection for healthcare providers as to how best these teams can be supported prospectively to build their resilience on an individual as well as a collective level.
Aims

The aim of this study was to understand bariatric surgeons’ perspectives of working during the first year of the pandemic to explore their self-reported personal and professional accounts of its impact.

Methods

Using a retrospective, two phased, study design with participants recruited from a closed, global bariatric surgical social media group, The Upper Gastrointestinal Surgical Society (TUGSS). All participants were bariatric surgeons actively working in practice.. The first phase used a qualitative thematic analytic framework to identify aspects of greatest salience to surgeons. The resultant themes informed the construction of an on-line, confidential survey to test the potential generalisability of the interview findings within a larger representative population of the global bariatric surgical community.

Findings

Findings of the study revealed that the first year of the pandemic had a detrimental effect on bariatric surgeons both personally and professionally in terms of their psychological resilience and general mental wellbeing.

Conclusion

This study has identified the need to build the psychological resilience of bariatric surgeons so that the practice of self-care and the encouragement of help-seeking behaviours can potentially be normalised, which will, potentially, in turn increase levels of positive mental health and wellbeing amongst them.